Monthly Archives: February 2017

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, Iowa legislator, hated thebill that would have ended licensing requirementsfor many professions, including interpreters.As a result, he ripped up the bill in half.People watching him from the gallery all roseup in cheers! A picture is at:

A big event in Wales is a musical festival –the Cyngerdd Gwyl Ddewi, a St David Day Concert.Deaf music lovers watched the program, expectingit to be captioned. It wasn’t and people areangry about it. They said the broadcasterdiscriminated against the deaf. The broadcasterdenied it, saying there were two reasons forno captions – copyright issues and alsodifficulty in translating Welsh songs intoEnglish language. What would the deaf Americanssay if the recent Oscar program wasn’t captioned!

— app to improve customer service for deaf

Working with Bermuda Islands Association of the Deaf,an American high tech company is developingan app to help public service companies deal withtheir deaf customers (telecoms, power suppliers,banks, insurance companies, etc). No videorelay service – just the deaf customer directlywith the company.

Sarah-Jane Moloney is a deaf newscaster in Ireland.At a fertility clinic in Spain, she and her husbandwere asked if they could have their genes fixed sothat the children would be born deaf. She said –no, let nature take its course. As it is, bothchildren were born hearing. Her comments hitthe Irish newspapers. A picture is at:

Oscar, the highlight event of the year for actors andperformers, are always getting into goofs. An examplewas announcing the wrong movie as the winner. Anydeaf goofs? Yes, but not deaf but of fake-deaf.In 1978 at the Oscar, a group of children, announcedas deaf, sign-sang Debby Boone’s Light Up My Life.These children were fake-deaf and even worse, theycould not really sign at all!

— disabled governor protects the deaf

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott uses a wheelchair toget around. It is nice to hear that he protectedTexas School for the Deaf. The state has imposeda hiring freeze on state agencies – but theschool has been made exempt from the hiringfreeze, upon orders of the governor!

The Washington, DC Metro (rapid transit/subway)system is broke. And if money is not found withincoming months, there may be dire consequences.One such consequence is selling the namingrights to metro stop stations. One such stationis NoMa–GallaudeU station. This name hasgenerated millions of dollars of free publicityfor Gallaudet. If Gallaudet loses its stationname, then would Gallaudet lose its identity?Hope it never happens. By the way, it is just15 minute breezy walk from the stop to thecampus. A picture is at:

Kevin Grendell, who is deaf and a lefthanded pitcher,is in the Los Angeles Angels minor league training camp.Hopefully we will be hearing more of him in years to comesince we’ve not had a great deaf pitcher since the days ofDummy Taylor.

— DeafWest in another new play

It was mentioned that DeafWest is worried about funding,but it did not stop them from showing a new play“Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo” which will debutMarch 7th.

big jump from a circus career (clown, trapeze artist,and contortionist) to a career in high fashion. Ths isthe name of Carola Insolera, deaf all her life andborn in Norway. Her picture is at:

http://deafdigest.com/carola-insolera/

— lack of deaf role models in children’s books

In an interview, Susan Daniels, the CEO of National Deaf Children’sSociety and Deaf Child Worldwide in Great Britain, said thatdeaf children are lacking role models in the books they are reading.

— IRS warning about scammers

IRS is warning about scammers that use deaf video relay service,prettending to work for IRS and claiming deaf people owe money.Why cannot relay services screen these calls on behalf of thedeaf. They don’t!